Coming in to replace the lead actor of a show that has been successful for four straight seasons may seem like a daunting enough challenge. But what if the character you are playing is one of the most famous and recognizable in 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century English literary and dramatic culture?

As Shakespeare might have put it, probably the best way of dealing with the situation is to adopt the attitude “to thine own Scrooge be true.” That seems to be the approach Jeremy Lawrence is taking in picking up the reins (or perhaps, purse strings) of Ebenezer Scrooge in The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts production of “A Christmas Carol” that opens its run Dec. 15.

“It really is one of the great roles an actor can play,” Lawrence said during an interview before a recent rehearsal. “And to make it your own is really a huge challenge and an exciting one.”

It was Charles Dickens who put pen to paper in the 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol” and created the irritable, small-minded miser who terrifies his hardworking, poorly paid accounting clerk Bob Cratchit but goes through a profound transformation on Christmas Eve. There have been many film and stage adaptations over the years. The fifth annual production by The Hanover Theatre is an adaptation by its own executive director, Troy Siebels. The show has enjoyed success with large casts, authentic-looking costumes and sets, and some dazzling special effects, and now bills itself as the largest New England production of “A Christmas Carol.”

In place, so to speak, from the beginning was Boston actor Dale Place as Scrooge. However, this holiday season Place is otherwise engaged (at the Huntington Theatre in “Our Town”), so Siebels had to look for a new Scrooge. Auditions were held in New York City, and New York actor Lawrence was cast as The Hanover Theatre's present and maybe future Ebenezer.

This is Lawrence's first time in Worcester, and his first go as Scrooge. “I'm very proud of everybody in the company. No one has ever said, 'Well, he (Place) used to do it this way.' Troy is very open to the choices I would like to make. There's been no pressure on me to fit into a form. I don't think another actor can reproduce another's work. I am not the understudy. I am not in the wings.”

Lawrence (who has an extensive theater background as well as a number of television credits) did appear in another production of “A Christmas Carol” when he was a little younger — as Cratchit.

Lawrence said he's watched the various TV and movie adaptations over the years where stars such as George C. Scott, Albert Finney and, perhaps most famously of all, Alistair Sim, sought to find their own inner-Scrooge.

“I had watched it every Christmas — every Christmas of my life,” Lawrence said of Sim's “A Christmas Carol.” But he hasn't watched it this year since being cast in the role.

“I don't believe actors can copy other actors. That's not the way it works. It has to come from inside of you. I'm enormously taken by the differences in all the performances (of Scrooge) I've seen,” Lawrence said. “I think it's one of those roles you invest yourself personally with, and then you find it. Scrooge in a way allows you to make some very strong choices, and I'm hoping to surprise the audience with some of the choices I'm making.”

Siebels, who is directing “A Christmas Carol,” seemed pleased with his choice of Lawrence. “Having a new actor, and someone with Jeremy's talent and experience, in the central role changes the whole dynamic in rehearsals. We discover new things and push ourselves more,” Siebels said. “I think that audiences will find it to be a different show this year because of Jeremy and new actors in the other leading roles.”

But Lawrence, an amiable conversationalist, came across as a bit rueful when he recalled a choice he had made relatively early in his acting career. After establishing a name for himself (Clive Barnes called him “very promising”) in stage productions such as the Off Broadway “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Lawrence headed to Los Angeles and the allure of TV and movies.

“For every young actor for a time the continent goes on a tilt,” Lawrence said. “I had a bunch of friends who said 'Come out, it's wonderful here.' I followed, and didn't like it.”

However, he stayed for 24 years. “I fell in love,” he explained.

His “survival job” was at the Mark Taper Forum theater in Los Angeles, where he held a number of positions, including literary manager. On TV, he delivered Richie's baby in an episode of “Happy Days,” threatened to immolate an original copy of the Constitution on “Night Court,” and married Drew Carey to his gay boss on “The Drew Carey Show.”

Lawrence also began to write seriously, and has had three plays produced. When he was in a stage production of “Five By Tenn” — five short plays by Tennessee Williams — the opportunity arose to move to New York with the show. Lawrence did just that, and stayed.

That was more than 10 years ago. He likes doing film, he said, but “I was brought up going to the theater. My parents were both involved with theater and did their best to dissuade me as any good parents would do. But this was my vocation.”

Lawrence had a sort of wry warning for anyone tempted to follow in his acting footsteps. “Nobody should go near it unless they have the sickness and the passion,” he said.

On the other hand, “When it works it's just the best moment in human experience because it doesn't happen very often when everyone's together and moved by the same thing.”

However, “A Christmas Carol” can be one of those vehicles where that does happen rather a lot, as Lawrence was happy to note. “ 'A Christmas Carol' has the power to move us over and over again,” he said.

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For the 1 p.m. Dec. 23 performance, people who show their Price Chopper Advantage Card at the box office or mention it on the phone when buying tickets will have 50 percent of their ticket price donated to benefit the Worcester County Food Bank.

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